As Bulgaria, a member of the EU since 2007, braces up to take over its first ever rotating presidency of the union, Prime Minister Boyko Borisov has warned: "There are members of parliament who are involved in drugs trafficking, there are individuals who have been buying the votes of prisoners, and there are people who call Bulgarians imbeciles."

"We are surprised with the incidents of aggression during the past few days."Interior Minister Valentin Radev on the street beatings of a mother and daughter on Monday, of a TV journalist on Tuesday and the assassination of a businessman on Wednesday

"Who knows what sort of funny pictures we must have taken at Buchenwald."Deputy Prime Minister Valeri Simeonov, of the extreme nationalist United Patriots, on his party's deputy urbanisation minister-designate's snapshot giving a Nazi salute

One of the greatest problems a visitor to Bulgaria faces is what to bring home as a…

VAGABOND VIDEO

It's 43 years since the crackdown on a remarkable protest in two remote Muslim villages of Communist Bulgaria. In the winter of 1973 their entire populations rebelled against the state and spent months camped out in the main square. Uniquely for Communist Eastern Europe, the villages became a no-go area for the authorities. Here are some of those who experienced it first hand.